The 2017 Lotus Evora 400 Is Lighter, Faster, and Better Than Ever

SIDELINED FIVE YEARS AGO in Lotus's short-lived, tragicomic plan to produce a string of reimagined cars out of thin air, the Evora is back with a bang, pop, and a waaaaaaaahhh! from its new sport exhaust.

The Evora 400 isn't just the best-sounding Lotus since Hethel stopped fitting Weber sidedraft carbs to its U.S.-bound Elans in 1968, it's the fastest production Lotus road car ever, with a claimed top speed of 186 mph. The 400 badge refers to the number of ponies, an increase of 55 hp over the old Evora S, made possible by a new charge cooler and a larger supercharger. Torque increases 7 lb-ft, to 302 lb-ft, available between 3500 and 6500 rpm. Five grand is where the real action starts, but 2000 rpm later, it's all over. Even in Race mode, you can switch off the active exhaust for stealth attacks on roads lousy with police.

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The Toyota V-6 still isn't a charismatic engine, but it's more engaging and mated to two improved transmissions. The six-speed manual gearshift—as before, knucklier than a skeleton's hand—feels meatier and shorter-of-throw. Although the six-speed automatic, a traditional torque-converter slusher, is no match for a Porsche PDK, shift times have been more than halved.

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The Evora's straight-line lunge is now more pronounced, but that's almost incidental to the car's behavior in curves. The steering rack remains hydraulically assisted and full of feel, there are stiffer springs and dampers, and curb weight is down almost 100 pounds. You notice the better body control during transitions and under braking; the massive increase in mechanical grip, everywhere.

Flatten the right pedal as you sail past an apex and the combination of Michelin Pilot Super Sports, clever four-mode stability control, and a limited-slip diff—previously avoided by Lotus for loss of purity but essential at this power level—means there's barely a wiggle from the rear. No wonder a factory test driver was able to cut seven seconds from the old Evora's 1:38 lap time at the Lotus test track in Hethel.

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Most significantly, the cabin has been transformed, with instrument graphics that are actually legible, a wider footwell, and longer seat travel for the new lightweight Sparco buckets, a lowered sill that makes it easier to get out, and door panels that no longer crush your kneecaps when you're doing so. You still have to put up with a fiddly aftermarket infotainment unit, but the switches, surfaces, and dials are all light-years ahead of past Lotuses—if still not up to Porsche standards. That stuff tends to matter to people spending $90,000 on a car, and it'll certainly matter to the next generation of buyers Lotus wants to woo.

Lotus chief Jean-Marc Gales assures us that some of the quality glitches in our two test cars (transmission chatter and wind noise from the driver's door) will be fixed on production cars. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, that's what loving Lotus has always been about, right?